January 12, 1867.

Namanga, a small place on the border between Kenya and Tanzania.

An expedition was heading north in Namanga, led by a self-taught explorer from Germany, Henriette.

Since he was a child, Henriette loved to listen to the adventure stories of the elders in his hometown, and his heart longed to explore like the protagonist of the story, so when he grew up, he wanted to venture around the world, in search of that thrill and novelty.

The first stop Henriette chose was Africa, because Africa is the most mysterious place in Europe today, but unfortunately Henriette did not have any in his pocket and could not buy a ticket to Africa.

Fortunately, at that time, Ernst was recruiting people in the German region to explore the way to the East African colonies, and Henriette signed up.

Henriette, like Commander Yarman, was a member of the first group of mercenaries in the East African colonies.

With a team of mercenaries, Henriette set out from the Baltic Sea and crossed the Atlantic and Indian Oceans all the way to East Africa.

When they first arrived, the mercenary teams of the East African colonies did not know much about the environment of the interior of East Africa, so they needed to survey the inland environment, so they formed several expeditions to explore the interior of East Africa, and these expeditions were signed up and selected from the first 2,000 Germans in the East African colonies.

Henriette was the first to sign up for the expedition and was appointed leader of a squad that led a group of a dozen men to the west to explore the vicinity of Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika).

This expedition to Kenya was led by Henriette to participate in the geographical survey of East Africa, but this time it was from the East African colonies to the north to explore Kenya.

Henriette's team was accompanied by another team from the capital of Mwanza in the Great Lakes (Lake Victoria) to explore north along the eastern edge of the Great Lakes.

……

A few days earlier, Henriette and his party had set out from Karatu, first eastward to the Arusha stronghold, then from Arusha to the north, and had reached Namanga today.

Namanga is a small town on the border between Tanzania and Kenya in the previous life, and it is more than 70 kilometers east of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Since the Sultanate of Zanzibar controlled a large area of eastern Kenya, the East African colonies did not choose to survey Kenya from the eastern part of the colony in order to avoid trouble

Instead, it explored from the relatively central northern highlands of the East African colonies to the central and western parts of Kenya.

Henriette's team only had to travel about 150 kilometers north from Namanga to the Nairobi region, the capital of Kenya.

The central and western regions of Kenya are the essence of the Kenyan state in the previous life, which can be seen from the national administrative region map of Kenya, the administrative area of the southwest region is relatively small and numerous, and the three eastern provinces account for half of the area.

Kenya's population is concentrated in the western highlands and near the Great Lakes region, while the rest of the country is relatively populated only in places such as Mombasa on the southeast coast.

The Sultanate of Zanzibar ruled much more over Kenya than over Tanzania, and basically the eastern part of Kenya was under the rule of the Sultanate of Zanzibar.

Therefore, the colonies made a move from the central and western regions, first preparing to take Kenyan land between Uganda and the Sultanate of Zanzibar.

Wearing a bowler hat made of banana leaves on his head and a branch cut into a rut, Henriette walked with dozens of people against the scorching sun of the East African highlands, while observing the changes in the nearby landscape and recording the landscapes and things along the way.

"Captain, shall we rest for a while? This rotten road and the big sun are really unbearable! One of the members suggested to Henriette.

Henriette raised his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead and took a deep breath.

He first looked at the sky around him, took out his compass, and looked in the next direction.

Now, just past noon, it is the time when the sun is at its hottest, and the earth is scorching under the scorching sun, exuding bursts of heat.

Pull out the improvised map from your backpack and cross Mount Ngong off the list.

Looking north from the position of the expedition, a hill has come into view, which is what the Arab merchants called Mount Ngong.

Henriette pointed to Mount Ngong and said to the players, "Everyone hold on a little longer, today we must hurry to the foot of the mountain, from this distance, Mount Ngong is not far away, at most ten miles away, then we can rest there." ”

The team members are no longer impatient when they hear that there are still ten miles to rest, and for the team members who have been out for a long time, ten miles is a small meaning when the physical strength is sufficient, just to warm up.

So the team continued to set off, and after an hour and a half, the sky had begun to darken and the sun was approaching the horizon.

The expedition finally came to the vicinity of the foot of Mount Ngong, which is a good place with dense greenery and many trees.

The team began to set up camp to rest, and in a short time several camping tents were erected.

Henriette sat in his tent, took out the notes he had taken along the way from his backpack, and began to fill in the gaps and draw a map.

The journey from Arusha to Namanga is mostly flat and gently undulating, but the further north you go, the drier the climate becomes, but there is still greenery along the way, with occasional bush encounters.

This continued until the vicinity of Mount Ngong in Namanga, where there was a marked increase in green space, large areas of forest and more rivers, no less favourable than the Arusha region.

Henriette read his notes carefully, marking in pencil what he saw along the way on a map.

It wasn't until it was completely dark that Henriette finished the map labeling, and a drawing was filled with dense text notes and icons.

……

"Captain Henriette, it's time to eat!" The voices of teammates came from outside the tent.

As the temperature drops quickly at night in East Africa, the team members gathered some firewood to build a campfire to keep warm and start heating food.

While working at Henriette, they had already caught their prey, a caracal.

After peeling and cramping, the bones weigh only a few pounds, and they are passed through the middle with a shaved wooden branch, sprinkled with spices and salt, and roasted.

The expedition brought dry food, all of which were rice from the colonies, and they learned the skill of steaming rice from the Chinese, but in fact, the Germans of the expedition wanted to eat bread more than rice.

It's a pity that the conditions in the colony are not allowed at the moment, and the procedures such as kneading and baking are very complicated, which is not suitable for field operations, these are still secondary, the main reason is that the expedition team is all big men and did not know how to cook before.

In other words, you can learn the simple cooking methods of grilling meat and cooking rice.

Use an aluminum lunch box, fill it with rice and water, and throw it directly on the charcoal fire to cook the rice, and the caracal meat is smoked and roasted under the charcoal fire, plus the wild vegetables picked from the wild, you can also make up for a meal.

The rice in the colony is the long-grain kind of South Asia, the wild vegetables are learned and known from the local aborigines, and the caracal meat tastes good, but it may not be very delicious due to dietary habits.

After eating, the team members began to rest, and the two men were responsible for keeping vigil, taking turns to change shifts to prevent wild beasts from invading the camp.

In the darkness, flames danced in the clearing, insects chirped, and there seemed to be a few pairs of shining eyes in the nearby mountains and forests staring at the location of the expedition.

The members of the night vigil, while adding firewood to maintain the flame of the bonfire, clenched the guns in their hands and watched around.

……

The next day, the team packed up their supplies and set out on the journey to Kenya again, and crossed the Ngong Mountains to enter Kenya.